HYBRIDS BETWEEN THE COMMON LILAC, &c. 307 
and I repeated upon them and upon the common double-flowered Lilac, fig. 
112, the work which I had previously attempted upon the Varin Lilacs. 
The failure was just as complete; [could not gather a single seed upon these 
two Persian Lilacs. I recommenced the following year, and I arrived at 
the same negative result. This led me to ask myself whether these two 
Lilacs, called Persian, figs. 113, 118, were not themselves also hybrids, the 
more so as I had never had occasion to remark a single case of fertilisa- 
tion, either natural or artificial, on these two plants. 
At the sare time the laciniate Persian Lilac, fig. 114, the widest 
spread, the most vigorous, and the only naturally fertile one of the group, 
was submitted to the same experiment: all its flowers crossed with the 
pollen of the double Lilac, fig. 112, were fertilised perfectly and produced 
seed. A small number only germinated, and the young plants obtained 
presented in their vegetation and their foliage intermediate characters 
between those of the two parents. Nearly all the years after this first 
essay I continued to cross some bunches of the laciniate Lilac with 
the double-flowered varieties of the common Lilac. I have obtained at 
present about sixty plants of all ages, of which several have already 
flowered, figs. 119, 120. Some have given single flowers, others double 
and semi-double flowers. One of them has been sent out three years ago 
under the name of Syringa Varina duplex, fig. 121. 
These plants form bushes of small height: the stems are slender; 
the leaves are narrow, lanceolate, lengthened, with certain slight differ- 
ences as regards their width and length; often, even, there is seen at the 
base of the branches some leaves slightly lobed. In general they are 
narrower than in the common Varin Lilac, and little less lengthened than 
in the typical Persian Lilac. The inflorescence covers the upper part 
of the branches fora great length, just as in the Varin Lilac. The form 
of the flowers, whether single or double, is also analogous to that of the 
Varin Lilac. The colours obtained until now range from violet-tinted 
lilac to purplish lilac and bluish lilac. I have therefore realised experi- 
mentally the Varin Lilacs perfectly characterised and bearing the living 
imprint of the hybridisation which has produced them by their flowers, 
often double, and by their leaves, somewhat lobed. 
_ The Varin Lilac is therefore not the Chinese Lilac of Willdenow, 
nor is it the ‘doubtful’ Lilac of Persoon. It is a hybrid between 
S. persica laciniata, fig. 114, and S. vulgaris, fig. 112, and no other 
appellation can be attributed to it than that given by Dumortier in 1802, 
Lilac (or Syringa) Varina, in honour of Varin, with whom the cross has 
operated for the first time in Europe, by chance, aided by the wind and 
by insects. 
Following up this result, now perfectly established, I will permit 
myself to formulate several hypotheses, which appear to me infinitely 
probable. 
_ The Varin Lilac type, obtained by Varin himself, should be the only 
plant of this group obtained from seed. The other forms, Saugeana, bicolor, 
metensis, &c., have been obtained by dimorphism (or sport) either from 
the Varin Lilac type or later from the Saugé Lilac. 
It is very probable that this Varin Lilac type, of which the leaves are 
wider than those of any hybrids, has been produced by the fortuitous 
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